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Employee surveys

ORIMA Research has conducted employee research for a broad range of public and private sector clients. Our employee research experience includes:

  • comprehensive research for individual organisations;
  • benchmarking surveys across the public sector; and
  • research tailored to specific subject matter (e.g. exit surveys, bullying and harassment, record keeping, etc).

We use various methodologies for our employee research, including:

  • online surveys (for example, see our Feedback survey);
  • face-to-face interviews; and
  • focus groups.

Case studies

  • Case study #1 - Australian Public Service Commission (APSC)

    The Australian Public Service Commission promotes good practice in managing people, supports leadership and learning and development in the Australian Public Service (APS), and fosters ethical behaviour and workplaces that value diversity.

    The APSC also has an important evaluation role in working with agencies to ensure that the APS is performing effectively and consistently with the APS Values.

    Since 2003, ORIMA Research has conducted annual surveys of Australian Government agencies and employees on behalf of the APSC as an input to the APSC’s annual State of the Service Report. The project involves:

    • an online survey of all Australian Government agencies employing 20 or more people under the Public Service Act 1999 (84 organisations); and
    • an online survey of a stratified random sample of over 6,000 employees from APS agencies with 100 employees or more

    These surveys have provided a range of human resource management benchmark measures for the APS. The results of the surveys are published in the APSC's State of the Service Report (see http://www.apsc.gov.au/stateoftheservice/index.html) and are widely used by APS agencies and their stakeholders.

    In 2007, the APSC was awarded a United Nations Public Service Award in the category of improving transparency, accountability and responsiveness in the public service for the State of the Service Report.

  • Case study #2 – Australian Government Department of the Environment and Water Resources (DEW)

    The Australian Government Department of the Environment and Water Resources (formerly the Department of the Environment and Heritage) develops and implements national policy, programs and legislation to protect and conserve Australia's natural environment and cultural heritage.

    ORIMA Research conducted a comprehensive online employee survey of all DEW employees. The survey provided DEW with:

    • comprehensive organisational information for the development of continuous improvement initiatives;
    • better knowledge of the composition, attitudes and matters of concern or importance to the DEW workforce;
    • a benchmark snapshot of the organisational climate from which to gauge the importance of proposed workforce management and planning initiatives; and
    • a baseline measure of organisational performance from which to measure the effectiveness of strategic HR policy implementation activities.